Highs and Lows of Fashion Week (Thus Far)

Excuse the cliché, but fashion week is an emotional roller coaster. When you’re at the peak with your arms in the air, all smug at having climbed to the top without so much as a whimper, you feel great. “I’ve got this,” you say to the person next to you at a morning show.

And then, the drop.

With your white knuckles gripping the bar that cannot be strong enough to hold you should a malfunction occur, you think to yourself, “GOOD GOD, WHY?”

But that’s kind of the fun part, right? Isn’t that why you get on in the first place: to feel your belly flip and determine, once and for all (or until the next ride), just how brave you are? I think so.

With that, behold — the fashion week highs and lows thus far.

High: Celebrity sightings. No matter how jaded you think you are, it never gets old to be in the same room as someone you listen to or saw on TV. Case in point: Naomi Campbell, Rihanna, North West, Maddie Ziegler, Kanye West and Kim Kardashian.

Low: Instagram outings, whereby you out your recent creepings to the person you were creeping on because you went to show them something on Instagram and the first thing that came up was their account.

High: Shows that make you think, like Creatures of the Wind, Altuzarra and Derek Lam.

Low: Movies that make you cringe, like Fifty Shades of Grey. (Which has much more to do with the annoying, repetitive close ups of Ana Steele biting her lip than anything else. Did you guys see this movie? Can we please talk about it below?)

High: When you can immediately apply what you learned from a show, like at The Row or J.Crew. Or, when you’re inspired to dress in a new way: like a lady at Victoria Beckham, Thakoon, Edun; like the new kind of hipsters at Hood by Air and Public School.

Low: When a baby somehow still does it better.

High: Spotting your friends in The Sea when you were sure you were a gonner.

“Oh my god I thought I’d lost you.”

Low: Waving at someone you mistook for your friend, waving at you, when actually, they were hailing the cab behind you. Cue furious and important fake texting session.

High: Using the frozen tundra of Manhattan for dramatic photography opportunities. If you need a new profile picture on Facebook, Hinge or GlutenFreeSingles.com, now is the time.

Low: Using the — I will say it again — FROZEN TUNDRA OF MANHATTAN — to prove just how thick your actual skin is by not wearing tights. Women. Gentlemen. Humans. A PSA: No matter how heavy your leg hair is; no matter how brilliantly your weekend-getaway tan carried over; no matter how many hot-pods you have shoved in various bodily crevices — walking around when there are literal polar bears going on STRIKE in the Hudson river without at least two layers of leg-wear is not only illegal and impractical, it is making the rest of us cold.

High: There is no better excuse for not answering an e-mail than, “Sorry, I was jumping for joy in front of photographers.”

Low: Spacing out while someone is talking to you because you’ve lost all sense of social skills. Of course, your best excuse in this case is easy: “Sorry, I was meditating.”

Now it’s your turn: highs and lows of your week, fashion fleek, my cheeks, Leandra’s sneaks — doesn’t matter — just find the comments and go.

Images shot by Krista Lewis

Want more? See all our Fashion Week coverage here.